Decorating My Office Part Three: SHINE Sign Project

You may remember that 2015 is my year to SHINE. Even thought I haven't had a chance to do a weekly post on my SHINE journey this year like I did in 2014 with "Now Is My Time" it has definitely played a important role in my life on a daily basis.

For some reason every time I walk into my office at work I am reminded to shine. I don't know what it is that reminds me but that sensation convinced me that I wanted to make a simple piece of SHINE art for my office. I loved the idea of looking up from my computer and seeing a pretty white canvas with gold glittery letters that spelled S-H-I-N-E.

For some reason lately the process of making the decisions about how to create what I'm seeing in my mind has been complicated. I have been working on a really cool art project for the big walls in my office for a couple of months. So far I have two industrial size foam boards cut in half in the garage. I'm still not sure how to enact the next step...and I need to track down a good, sharp box cutter to create the shapes I want to work with.

The SHINE sign was the same challenging process. I knew I wanted the base to be a bright, white rectangle. I knew I wanted the lettering to be glittery gold. But once I started looking around I realized I had a lot of options for materials. At first I aimed for gold glitter paper, then wanted it to have more dimension so started looking for chipboard or wood letters. That was a whole journey in and of itself looking at all those possibilities. Finally I settled on a simple cut wood font.

Then the decisions making started all over again...would I cover them with paper, paint them with metallic gold paint, glue and glitter, paint AND glitter. After a lot of debate and a fairly discouraging conversation with a craft store associate, I chose what I thought was the lesser of all evils -- I'm still not convinced if it was or not.

I bought metallic gold paint and gold glitter paint. I painted several coats of gold metallic paint on for coverage and then it took several more coats of glitter paint to get a good thorough coverage. In the end, up close I wasn't totally happy with the outcome. But I envisioned that once they were affixed to the background and appreciated from a distance the small flaws that were bugging me would not be apparent to me or anyone else.

So the next step was to glue the wood letters to a 10 x 20 canvas. The canvas was expensive, so I made sure to get a good coupon and cut the cost down by 40%. Needless to say with the cost of the canvas, the paints, paintbrushes, glue (and gold paper I ended up not using), this was not a cheap DIY. It probably cost about $25. The cost was probably a little more than normal because all my art supplies are in a storage unit somewhere and I had to buy stuff I usually have available in the house.

There was a lot of drying time between layers and the painting process extended over the better part of a week. I let the letters dry solidly for a few days while I was away on a short business trip. When I returned they were ready to be glued, so even though it was quite late when I got home, I got them arranged on the canvas with a little help from some painters tape I found in the garage. I glued all the letters down, or so I thought. A while later I picked up the piece to look at it in the final state and the N fell to the floor. Thinking the glue must not be dried yet, I picked it up and realized I had never glued it down.

Moments later it was properly affixed and the next day I took my new art piece in and found the perfect spot for it on the far wall across from my desk under my favorite clock. I love looking over and seeing this simple but sassy reminder to be conscious to SHINE in everything I do and in ever interaction I have each day. It's such a great reminder and I'm so happy I made it myself. Interestingly enough, since I started making this I've been finding SHINE themed graphic design art in stores. Apparently there's a movement afoot. Glad I'm on the bandwagon...or in front of the bandwagon.

The above photo is definitely a work in progress shot, nothing in place, just playing around with things. Yesterday I made a few more purchases for the office and may be returning a few items or repurposing things I had previously bought for my office. Today I am going into the office early to put a few things into place.
More to come on the great office decoration project of 2015.